Tag Archives: Developer Edition

Today, HTC has announced a developer edition of for its upcoming flagship handset, the One. The developer edition of the One will only be available in the United States and will come with an unlocked SIM and bootloader.

The developer edition of the One sports the same specs as the normal One, including a 4.7-inch S-LCD3 display with 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, a Qualcomm 1.7GHz Snapdragon 600 SoC, 2GB of RAM, BoomSound, an UltraPixel camera, a metal unibody construction, 64GB of storage space and the usual bunch of connectivity features and sensors including Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac and an IR blaster.

HTC will only be making the developer edition of the One in limited quantities in the United States for a price of $649. You will need a valid US zip-code to even order the device from HTC.

By releasing a developer edition of the One, HTC has followed on the footsteps of Samsung and Motorola. A developer edition also strongly suggests that HTC will be locking down the bootloader on the U.S carrier variants of the One and it may not be unlockable using its web-based bootloader unlocking tool.

HTC needs to realize that developers and enthusiasts are rarely interested in purchasing a developer edition of any handset for development purposes. Also, if they do not provide allow bootloader unlocking on the U.S carrier variants of the One, they will be literally shooting themselves in the foot.

Put this under the ‘No one gives a damn category’. Samsung and Verizon today have unveiled the developer edition of the Galaxy Note 2 for the big Red network. Compared to the normal Galaxy Note 2 that is already selling on the big red’s network for the last few weeks, the “Developer Edition” only features an unlocked bootloader.

Apart from this, the “Developer Edition” packs the same specs as the normal version, which means that potential buyers would still get the same quad-core 1.6GHz Exynos processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot, S-Pen, a mammoth 5.5-inch 720p Super-AMOLED HD screen, and Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean.

The “Developer Edition” is aimed at..well..developers who are interested in tinkering around with their devices. The normal Galaxy Note 2 comes with a locked down bootloader that makes it tough for developers to tinker around with. The “Developer Edition” Galaxy Note 2 needs to be purchased at its full retail price directly from Verizon without any contract and it does not come with any warranty, which does not really make it that much more attractive, especially considering that the Galaxy Note 2 bootloader was just unlocked last week.